Speaker of Parliament Emmer-son Mnangagwa told the Zimbabwe Independent on
Wednesday Musekiwa has not resigned.

"I have not received any letter of resignation from Musekiwa and as far as I
know he is still a member of parliament," Mnangagwa said.

MDC secretary-general Professor Welshman Ncube said as far as he was
concerned there was no by-election in Zengeza.

"The position is that as of today we still are not in receipt of the formal
resignation of Musekiwa," said Ncube.

"We know what he has stated to the press but he has not communicated to the
party that he has resigned.

"We are not aware that he has sent a letter of resignation to the speaker of
parliament and no such announcement has been made in parliament," Ncube
said.

Press reports last month said Musekiwa had resigned and gone into exile in
Britain because he believed the government wanted to eliminate him.

Musekiwa is still in the UK where he sought political asylum. According to
the Zimbabwe constitution, an MP should not be absent from parliament for 21
consecutive sittings. These have not expired owing to the few days
parliament has been in session this year.

The ZBC in January announced it was going on to the market to raise about
$1,7 billion for re-capitalisation and other financial obligations.

Sources at Pockets Hill said there were no takers for the ZBC paper because
of the high risk factor caused by poor management and financial
indiscipline. The Zimbabwe Independent has it on good authority that details
of the bond were made available to selected financial institutions the
government thought would subscribe to the bond.

Money market sources said there was a lot of uncertainty at ZBC because of
high staff turnover. They also want ZBC to demonstrate its ability to raise
revenue and operate profitably.

Revenue at the ZBC has over the past three years diminished as advertisers
have taken flight from the corporation's poor programme schedule, which has
been crafted to fulfil a 75% local-content requirement and to promote the
government's political agenda.

The little advertising revenue that has trickled in comes mainly from
anti-Aids adverts.

Sources said the bond did not "excite the market".

"We heard about it and just laughed it off in the bar," said a senior
manager with an asset management firm. "No one took it seriously."

Workers who were retrenched under ZBC's Vision 30 programme this week said
they had still not received their terminal benefits as the public
broadcaster was unable to raise money. The former workers said ZBC owed
administrators of the pension fund Old Mutual about $100 million which has
still not been remitted.

l The failure to raise fresh capital comes amid reports that ZBC is
contemplating introducing a complete ban on international music which
originates outside Africa.

Sources at Pockets Hill said Information minister Jonathan Moyo - the
architect of the current unpopular 75% local content quota - is planning to
prohibit non-African music from ZBC television and radio stations.

"We understand he is planning to do this and there have been signs of late
that he is determined to proceed," a source said.

"It may be coming in the next two to three months. He is likely to say for
every 10 songs played, two must be from Africa and the rest from Zimbabwe."

A ZBC source said managers recently ordered SFM disc-jockeys to stop playing
foreign music, meaning that which originates outside Africa, but retreated
after fierce resistance by listeners.

"They tried it recently and the DJ who was on air in Bulawayo's Montrose
Studios came under fire from listeners," a source said. "People attacked her
for the experiment but she referred all complaints to Pockets Hill. The test
was later abandoned."

Sources said the Dean of Diplo-mats, Ndali-Che Kamati of Nami-bia, on
February 5 distributed a copy of a Foreign Affairs order barring ambassadors
and high commissioners from making addresses on their national days.

"The order basically states that the practice of making speeches during
national days should be discontinued," a diplomatic source said. "After
that, embassies and high commissions have stopped speeches, toasts to
President Ro-bert Mugabe and the people of Zimbabwe, and any other gestures
of courtesy."

It was the declining number oftoasts to Mugabe that proved the final straw
for government, the sources said. "Ambassadors, particularly from the
European Union and North America, generally preferred to toast 'the people
of Zimbabwe'," one source said.

Sources said the order was meant to gag outspoken diplomats who have
criticised government over repression and human rights abuses. While
diplomats like Ka-mati, Zambian High Commission-er Dingiswayo Banda, who is
also Dean of African Diplomats in Ha-rare, and Nigerian High Commis-sioner
Wilberforce Juta, have tend-ed to whitewash Zimbabwe's simmering political
and economic crisis, others have been less indulgent. Spanish ambassador
Javier Sandomingo issued a stinging rebuke on the occasion of his national
day last year, lamenting the failure of Harare to address issues raised by
his government.

But Brown, in his address, turned up the volume. In some of the strongest
remarks made by a senior diplomat in Harare, he told an Australia Day
gathering on January 26 that his country, which supported the process
leading to Zimbabwe's independence and reconstruction, was shocked by the
current dramatic national decline.

"Australia has watched with dismay as the people of Zimbabwe have become
poorer," Brown said. "They are now more vulnerable to ill-health. They are
more hungry, more often."

Brown said Zimbabweans had become victims of growing repression.

"They are less able to enjoy the democratic and human rights guaranteed to
all peoples in the Commonwealth," he said.

"Above all, the people of Zimbabwe were, in Australia's views and in the
view of the Commonwealth Observer Group, denied the free expression of their
will in the March 2002 presidential election."

Brown noted that since the disputed poll, repression had been intensifying.

"Since that election, we have seen the government of Zimbabwe tighten its
grip on its people, further denying their freedoms of speech and
association, and their protection under the law without discrimination," he
said.

Highly placed sources in the horticulture industry said Shiri and others
approached farm produce exporting giant Mitchell & Mitchell of Marondera
seeking to be engaged as its out-growers. Shiri's offer was turned down
because he doesn't officially own the land he is occupying.

Under the fast track resettlement scheme, Shiri was allocated Eirene Farm in
Marondera at the expense of 96 families who had initially taken over the
farm.

Directors at Mitchell & Mitchell confirmed that many A2 farmers in the area
wanted to be the company's out-growers.

"We have received lots of inquiries from A2 resettled farmers aspiring to
get into horticulture farming," a director with Mitchell & Mitchell said
this week.

"It's unfortunate that we can't accept them because of the way they have
acquired their land. We work under specific and stringent criteria set by
international markets.

"Only those farmers who officially own land are eligible to become our
out-growers. Farmers should produce title deeds as the first requirement. If
you don't have title deeds we don't even consider your offer," he said.

"The selection criteria we are using have not been designed by ourselves
because we are not the final consumers of the products. It is what the
international market wants and we have to comply with their demands or risk
contract cancellation," he said.

Shiri and other A2 resettled farmers do not have title deeds or even leases
to show that they are official owners of the land they occupy. The only
documentation they have is a certificate of occupation issued by the
Ministry of Lands. The state is the new owner of most of the 11 million
hectares acquired since 2000.